Thunder, Skin-Silk, and Magic
by SherlockedWhovian9
Summary: In an effort to help John research a book he isn't really writing, Sherlock agrees to really bond with John, just like men in the armed forces would. Things reach critical mass when John is abducted one time too many and Sherlock's distractions with the writing project lead to unforgivable mistakes. Johnlock, not Britpicked.
1. A Cold, Brilliant, and Furious Sherlock

"Knew you'd figure it out eventually. You're a clever one, aren't you, Sherlock Holmes?"

Sherlock paced through the warehouse, his steps slow and deliberate. He was soaking up every clue he could about the place: _Old munitions factory. Out of service for forty—no, forty-three years. Full of the damp and crawling with mold, so should have been demolished decades ago. _He sniffed delicately. _Ah, yes. And lead-based paint, and . . .asbestos? Bloody hell._ He scanned for exits and found old lead windows all but painted shut by layer after layer of that lead paint. _Must remember not to take any deep breaths for fear I'll get that in my lungs. That wouldn't do._

"I suppose I know what you're here for."

"Should be obvious," he said, scanning for the source of the voice. It was hard to determine; the sound bounced off walls and reverberated in the far reaches of the space.

"Transparent."

"Then get on with it." Sherlock flashed a one-sided sneer. "I'm busy."

"I like that." A hint of a well-hidden German accent slipped through; a soft _D_ sound at the beginning of the word _that_, something that would have slipped the notice of lesser people, the kind of people who _see_ but do not _observe_. "Very well, since you're so busy."

A loud crack from overhead: _Old lighting, not gunfire_, followed by a slow-building hum, and a spotlight was thrown over a form approximately two dozen yards distant. The form was seated, slumped forward, and, judging by what Sherlock knew of balance and human anatomy, that form was bound.

_John_.

He smirked again. Why did the criminal classes never learn? Repeatedly they'd tried to provoke him by absconding with his best friend. Sure, the Tong had made a mistake by confusing John for Sherlock—of all the madness—but since then every attempt had been deliberate. Moriarty had tried twice, once at the pool and once via sniper. Sherlock had thwarted every attempt, always assuring John could be where he was meant to be, where the photo in Sherlock's secret heart demanded he be: Safe and warm at Baker Street.

This would be no different. The criminal classes would someday learn that taking John away only resulted in a cold, brilliant, and furious Sherlock.

He didn't run. He resumed his careful stride, headed for that slumped form. He let a _largo _tempo throb in his veins and he measured his footsteps against that steady, relentless crimson tide. _No rush. John will be fine._

"So what's the trap?" Sherlock asked casually, just a chat between friends.

"Trap?" the omnipresent voice asked him.

He let out a sharp huff of laughter. "Come now. You didn't go through all this trouble to let me simply untie him and take him away from here."

"It's always about you, isn't it, Mr. Holmes?" the voice asked. The German accent sharpened in anger. "It doesn't always start that way, you know. Perhaps old Moriarty was . . ._fixated_ on you, but we aren't all the same. I have a business to run, and you've grown bothersome."

"That doesn't answer my question. What amazing feat of logic am I expected to perform?"

Oops. Perhaps the tone of forbearance in his voice was a bit heavy-handed. But honestly, how was he expected to tolerate these simplistic idiots who, time after time, abducted John like it was procedure?

"You arrogant child," the voice said. The anger was gone. Excitement and amusement had replaced it. "Very well. If you can make it to Doctor Watson, you may have him."

"Make it?" Sherlock asked. "What's to stop me?"

"My boys."

At that word, no less than a dozen fully-costumed _ninjas_ materialized from the shadows.

Sherlock sighed heavily. Oh, this was just too ridiculous. He took one more look at John: His John, his best friend, flatmate, blogger, partner-in-crime, and _secret heart_—and he rushed forward into the fray.

* * *

Much later, as John was kept in hospital overnight "for observation"—_tedious—_and as Sherlock kept his patient, silent vigil, perched like a condor in the uncomfortable plastic bedside visitor's chair, he would close his eyes and slip into a secret room in his Mind Palace, a place full of soft furniture covered in skin-warmed wool, the scent of Earl Grey wafting between banal books, crap telly murmuring in the background. Sherlock took a seat in his chair and pulled a wool throw closer, over him, and wallowed in everything that John had come to mean to him.

A voice—the voice of his hidden self, the relentlessly emotional, sentimental sap living deep in this tortured basement full of _feelings_—whispered that this whole situation was untenable. Something would give. It had to.

He hushed the voice and found peace in the steady _largo_ beat of John's electronically transmitted pulse.

* * *

"So . . .Lestrade, then?"

"Mm." Sherlock was now standing by the window, projecting boredom through his voice and posture as he answered John's questions. John was sitting up in bed, rubbing the chafed-raw ligature marks on his wrists. His hair was sleep-mussed and a little longer than usual. His eyes were bloodshot. A plaster was fixed over an abrasion on his left temple where he'd been struck to render him unconscious.

"And extradicted, you said?"

Sherlock frowned. How he hated repeating himself. "You weren't concussed, John. I won't repeat myself simply to satisfy your fascination with the sound of my voice."

John smiled that wide, guileless smile of his, and Sherlock turned away. "Prat."

"Oh, God, why are we still here?" Sherlock groaned.

"Paperwork."

"Mycroft is footing the bill for this. There shouldn't be any _paperwork_."

"There's always paperwork. Calm down."

"You seem back to your usual, infuriating adherence to societal norms, John. I'll leave you to that."

"You're off?"

Sherlock stopped before he reached the door to the private little hospital room. John's question was unsteady, unsatisfied. _He doesn't want me to go._

"I-I thought I should go to the shop, make sure we have your precious _milk_ and _beans_ and _biscuits_."

"Ah. Right then. Off you pop."

Sherlock did not turn back.

* * *

John watched him go, and when he was sure Sherlock was gone, he closed his eyes and sighed.

He didn't mind so much the near-constant abductions—at least, not anymore. He didn't mind being waked at all hours of the night to paw through stacks of books or sneak into the flats of vacationing government officials or be the rabbit in any number of Sherlock's experiments. He didn't mind the sulking or the tantrums or the seeming _impossibility _of living with a deranged genius—because there were certainly benefits to this life. There were the impromptu violin compositions in the stillness of a Sunday afternoon. There were the breathtaking glimpses at what very well may be the next phase of human evolution, a peek at the _Übermensch _through the portals of Sherlock's prismatic eyes. There was a friendship at the end of the day, a friendship that obliterated any relationship that pretended to be more significant. He belonged with Sherlock. He knew that. Sherlock's absence after that awful dive from Bart's roof had drilled the lesson into his soul.

What he minded was the physical restlessness of his libido. The range of available women in the greater London area who were willing to put up with these shenanigans had thinned to the point of desperation, and he'd finally given up his search for that one singular soul who could bear it. He'd briefly considered employing the services of a professional, but . . .no. He was a doctor and an army veteran. It would be just too sad to resort to paying for sex. Besides, he'd never enjoyed wearing a condom during sex. He was too damned old for this relentless single-life churn, too old to wear the mask of the interested suitor when nobody, simply nobody, could be as interesting as his own flatmate. Nobody could supplant Sherlock. It was a singular, aggravating, fascinating, and infuriating fact of his condition.

There was only one possible solution.

Captain John Hamish Watson, formerly of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, was not gay, but for the sake of his continued sanity he was going to find a way to seduce Sherlock Holmes.


	2. Need More Data

How does one overcome the inherent objections of their own sexuality? How do you begin to reprogram the way your body and mind are melded, that fine line between the flesh and the soul that determines what is suitable for touching and licking and suckling?

Internet porn was certainly not getting the job done.

John was careful to erase his internet history—wouldn't do to have all this careful preparation hacked, then mocked—before he slammed his laptop shut with a resounding click. He was in the close quarters of his bedroom; it was early, very early in the morning, and while he couldn't be sure if Sherlock was in his own bed downstairs or not, he suspected the idiot was. He hadn't heard the violin at all last night, and the tone of that instrument usually at least partially roused him from his unsteady, nightmare-riddled sleep. Sherlock played when he couldn't—rather, _didn't_—sleep. He did it to reorganize the file boxes in his brain, make the processing of his massive hard drive more efficient. He did it while experiments matured and when the Mind Palace wasn't productive. He did it when he just couldn't _think_. It was nice.

He sighed and lay back into the firmness of his mattress and pillows. He threw an arm over his eyes to block the light of the dawn. Then he thought about that violin again, the gentleness of it sometimes, the sweetness of it always, even when it was shouting in rage or frustration, the second voice of a man who was already blessed with the organic equivalent of rumbling thunder.

His cock twitched. Interesting, that. Here in the privacy of his room, he rolled the thoughts through his mind again: the soft counterpoint proposed by the throat of the violin and Sherlock's voice –

_Ah. Yes._

Okay. So his body could definitely work with the idea of the man in abstract, his parts broken down metaphorically. But that would be unhelpful in the extreme if, by some miracle, Sherlock became interested in reciprocating and John's interest remained stubbornly moored in the metaphor. _In other words, you daft wanker, you can't fake a boner._

Even so, he let his hands trail down his belly to the drawstring of his pyjama bottoms then lower, under the cotton to where his cock was slowly gaining girth. He sighed as he curled his fingers around it and he called to mind the concrete aspects of the man. _Long neck, a column of white flesh resounding with that voice. Slim, wiry limbs belying his strength. The utter masculinity of his strong, long-fingered hands, so adept and graceful. Sherlock, like a great pale cat, sinew and muscle and . . .his green-glass eyes, his soft, dark brown curls, his, his—_

"Oh," John sighed. No, he wasn't gay, not at all. He could conduct this experiment with any number of men of his acquaintance and nothing would happen, that he knew. The visuals of two men rutting did nothing for him. It was only Sherlock—

"Dear God," he whispered as he stroked, as his body joined his soul in the heartbreaking joy of the thought of Sherlock _naked_, writhing under him in ecstatic release. "_Sherlock. God._"

His orgasm was intense, a revelation, and he laughed through it in wonder. _How long? How long have I kept this from myself?_

He wiped himself off with one of those forlorn, mateless socks that everyone seems to accumulate somehow, and he thought his experiment was a success. Most definitely.

But now what? Timing would be the key to this. He couldn't just barge into things and—

"John?"

He looked up from where he was half-sprawled in his own bed and yanked his hand from his pants. "Sherlock!"

Sherlock's eyes grew wide and phased from that bottle green to a stormy gray. "Did I . . ._interrupt_ something?"

"Get out of my room!"

"I heard my name, John."

"What? What?"

"I thought perhaps . . .a nightmare . . ."

John swallowed. Oh, the nightmares. Of course. _Of course_ that's what Sherlock thought. He'd come into John's room at times before to rattle something noisy and wake John before either _PAIN the bullet in my shoulder my life is over_ or _PAIN my best friend's blood on the pavement my life is over_.

So naturally Sherlock assumed the latter, another nightmare of that damned day he'd been forced to watch—

Never mind. Illusion. Magic trick. Over.

"Well, that wasn't . . .Oi! Doesn't matter! Out!"

Sherlock frowned, that small crease appearing between his eyebrows, and finally complied, pulling the bedroom door shut behind him.

_Awake, then. The ridiculous idiot had been awake. And he'd caught me tossing off to thoughts of him. But . . .he hadn't heard my thoughts. He'd heard . . .what?_

_My orgasm?_

John slumped backwards into his bed. As usual, he remembered nothing of what had happened at the point of climax. He never did. He'd been told that he was largely incoherent, sometimes saying things like "tomato" or "kraken" or "winsome alopecia in extremis" or something along those lines. One woman had kept him in her bed all weekend, bringing him off repeatedly and recording his exclamations. Amusing and sexy to the point of aggravation.

What had he said this time? _Oh, good Lord. What did I say?_

* * *

_Sherlock. Oh, Sherlock, oh God, thunder and skin-silk and magic, my Sherlock!_

Sherlock felt his lips quirk into a one-sided smile. _Interesting._ That secret room in his Mind Palace had just gained a new sound, one to drown out that damned telly. John groaning through what he'd originally thought was a nightmare, odd words on his lips, tension and what Sherlock had interpreted as fright.

_Could still have been that, fright_, Mycroft's voice murmured from the back of his mind. He frowned at his relentless voice of reason, wondering again why it had to wear Mycroft's smarmy tenor. _Could have been a confused moment between sleep and waking, little brother. Be careful._

"Need more data," Sherlock whispered to himself.


	3. A Fool's Errand

_I'm not hiding in my room. No. I'm simply . . .waiting. Waiting for that berk to quit the flat so I can emerge with my dignity more or less intact._

John let the thought fully form in his mind before he collapsed back onto his bed, fully-dressed. He couldn't even logically retreat to the safety of the surgery today; as a locum doctor he was on call, and it had been a ridiculously healthy autumn. He was scheduled for a day of lazy idleness.

That would not do, not after what had happened.

_Then again . . .what's the harm of just going downstairs and confronting the issue?_ His newly redirected libido asked.

He swatted that lizard's voice aside. Sherlock didn't do _relationships_. The closest he'd ever come—at least, to John's knowledge—had been Irene Adler, and she'd ended up dead. John did not want to end up dead. He was startled to realize he wanted even less to end up ruthlessly mocked by his flatmate, who had the emotional maturity of a twelve-year-old and the vocabulary resources of a vulgar poet laureate.

_"So, John, tell me again what you think of my voice? I'm _bored_."_

No. No, this wouldn't do at all.

In the light of that near-certainty—that his interest would be not only roundly rejected, but thoroughly scolded—he wondered how he ever thought he could be up to the task of seducing Sherlock. What nonsense. It really had been too long since he'd gotten well-laid. He'd been a colossal moron to think that could change simply because he'd developed a . . ._fancy_ for a certain consulting detective.

Now that he was able to abandon the silly notion of seducing Sherlock Holmes, he manned up and emerged from his bedroom. Sherlock was not waiting right outside his door, pointing at him and laughing, so he edged to the bathroom. Sherlock was not waiting immediately within, pointing at him and laughing, so he availed himself of the room's resources and refreshed himself. He made a beeline past the sitting room and put the kettle on. If ever there'd been a day for copious amounts of tea, today was the day.

_And toast. I think I'll need quite a bit of beans on toast. _

"Because flatulence will make you even more charming than you already are."

John felt every muscle in his body simultaneously clench at the sound of that voice. Even escaped the confines of this morning's fantasy, Sherlock's magnificent voice sent an electrical charge straight down his spine to his sensitized cock.

"Jesus—Sherlock, why are you . . .?"

John cast an irritated glance over his shoulder and felt his words lodge behind his Adam's apple. His flatmate was wearing his dressing gown and pyjama bottoms. And no shirt.

"Warm in today, isn't it?" Sherlock asked.

John flushed. _He's taking the piss._ He returned his attention to the kettle and the half-opened package of bread and the tin of beans on the counter. _And there's my day sorted._

"It's late September. Not warm in, no."

"Then it's just me." John heard Sherlock throw himself rather dramatically onto the sofa and briefly wondered if that damned dressing gown had sloughed to the side, revealing even more of that marble torso. He reined in the thought and bit his lip.

"Not sure what you're playing at," John muttered, slamming two slices of bread into the toaster and exchanging the tin of beans for some nice, simple, easy butter and jam.

"Mm." And that was going to be the end of the teasing for the moment. _Good._

"Tea?"

"Yes."

"_Please_ is a good word."

"But unnecessary. You offered."

John was more irritable than was justified, especially after so incredible an orgasm, but the irritation caused by the realignment of certain _truths_ he'd held about himself couldn't be overcome by something as simple as one lonely orgasm. "Tell me you have a case on."

"No."

"An experiment in progress."

"Again, no."

"You're going to pick up something dreadful from Molly at the morgue."

"Nope."

"So you're bored."

"Oddly, no."

John pulled up short just as the toaster finished toasting. "No?"

There was a smug smile in Sherlock's voice when he answered from his place on the sofa. "Not at all."

It was always best to retrieve the toast as soon as it was done in the toaster. The butter slid much more easily over warm bread, and that coupled with the chill of the refrigerated jam and the warmth of tea made for a lovely breakfast. Right now, however, John just couldn't be arsed to give a shit. He had to see what the hell was going on with Sherlock's face.

He popped his face out of the kitchen and surveyed his flatmate. Oh, sure enough, that damned dressing gown had slid clear off Sherlock's chest and stomach, exposing the planes of the man—the cool alabaster smoothness of him—to John's newly-awakened eyes. He couldn't keep his eyes from sliding down from the tousled crown of his head, to the long throat, to the dusky nipples, to an enticing bit of dark curl peeking just above the man's pyjama bottoms. His cock thickened in appreciation of the erotic art on display on the sofa.

His eyes returned to Sherlock's face. There was an amused smirk playing at the corners of that full, sensual mouth. "John, while I appreciate the care you've taken in erasing your internet history, I have to admit to being quite a bit disappointed in your ignorance that our wireless router keeps track of all websites accessed from this flat."

For the second time that morning—well, third, if one counted that splendid orgasm—John's every muscle locked up tight.

_Fuck._

* * *

It had been the work of thirty seconds to unlock John's laptop after he'd toddled off to the shower. Internet history wiped. Sherlock smiled. _So you've been up to something, then. But what?_

He'd gone back downstairs to access the router's log from his own laptop—_After all, there was a remote chance John would return to his room and find Sherlock snooping_—and accessed the website history.

Internet porn sites. Not surprising; John usually visited them once or twice a week, which was more often than it had been while he was dating, but not more than could be expected for a man in his prime, starved for sexual contact. What _was_ surprising was the nature of the pornography.

Gay porn. Four different sites, so not a mis-click.

_Oh, John, you never cease to surprise and intrigue me, do you?_

He had a sudden image of John _sans pants_, hand pumping his cock, watching two men fucking. He forgot how to breathe for a moment and angrily threw the image into the secret room for later retrieval and review.

_So, John may or may not have been calling my name while having a wank this morning, but he certainly was reviewing gay pornography on the internet. Is this enough data?_

Mycroft's voice, that oddly light tenor again: _No. Remember what you're risking._

Oh, right. That. His secret heart.

_Need more data._

Sherlock was suddenly urgent. He needed as much data as quickly as he could get it. He had no patience for the slow, steady accumulation of relevant facts over a long period of time. He wanted to know _now_ if John wanted him physically, because the recent additions to his Mind Palace were making it clear that Sherlock _wanted_. He hadn't wanted anything physical in such a very long time, not since he'd decided at university that his sexuality wasn't neat or convenient or even especially interesting. It was interesting now, because suddenly, and quite out of the blue, the straight-as-a-bullet's-trajectory flatmate with whom he'd foolishly fallen in love years ago was tottering towards Sherlock's side of the fence. The impossible had become slightly possible. He wouldn't risk his heart on a fool's errand, no, of course not. But he would assault John with as many data-gathering tricks and devices as he could.

A three-pronged attack, then: Flirt. Expose skin. Confront John with evidence. Preferably all at once.

What he saw at the end of this attack was a stammering man, flushed and definitely _aroused_.

_Oh, John._


	4. Hypothesis Disproven

"You . . .reviewed my internet history."

John fell back on instinct, an instinct that was planted during military training and honed on the battlefield: Establish a fallback position and hold there until the danger has passed. His fallback position in this relationship was dogged outrage: Outrage when Sherlock displayed no empathy for people, outrage when Sherlock forgot to put the milk back in the refrigerator, outrage when Sherlock pretended that John was either not in the room when he really was or was still in the room when he really wasn't. In this case he was going to bunker in his outrage until the storm of mockery passed, thank you.

Sherlock fluttered a graceful hand dismissively. "Obviously."

"And you think that's appropriate, do you?"

Sherlock sat up and turned his gorgeous, flawless bare torso in John's direction. "That's not in question. I _always_ hack into your laptop, John. I've done it since your first month in this flat. What's in question is why you felt the need to clear your browser's history."

"Because I know you'll hack my laptop!" John fumed.

"Which I've done before to find a rich trove of banal message board posts, medical articles, and tedious pornography." Sherlock gave John a slow burn of a smile. "So why was this time different?"

John shoved his hands in his pockets and said the first thing that came to mind. "I'm researching. For a book."

Sherlock's smile disappeared. "A book."

"Yes."

"About gay sex."

"It's possible."

"You're not gay."

John shrugged and removed his hands from his pockets so he could cross them over his chest. "Doesn't mean I can't, er. Try to see things from another perspective. That's writing, isn't it?"

Sherlock came to his feet and moved in that petulant way of his, crossing to the desk and pawing through the papers on it. "So tell me about your book, then."

_Fuck!_

John covered up his off-kilter reaction with a laugh. "Oh, come on, Sherlock. It's fiction. When was the last time you read something purely for recreation?"

"If my blogger writes it, I'm obligated to read it."

"Then wait until it's done, like the rest of the world."

"Oh, commercial aspirations. Getting the drop on your millions of future fans will be all the more gratifying." Sherlock took another step closer, completely dispossessed of the strange mockery from just a moment ago and back to the economy-of-movement efficiency he was used to. "Come now, John. Surely you don't mind indulging me."

John closed his eyes and took a leap of faith. He was barely able to contain his surprise that it worked out. "Military tale, yeah? Two blokes in Afghanistan, straight as you please, same company. They get to missing their girls back home and . . .you know."

"Say I don't know."

"Sherlock, they _get together_."

"And that's what you were researching."

"Not just the sex, you git."

"More than sex?"

"Well, right. Because they begin to understand through talking, like mates do, that they're really just using the women back home for sex. They're not friends, like blokes can be together. It's more emotional when they get together."

John watched Sherlock's face as he told this impromptu story. Of course, he'd had friends back in Afghanistan who'd had a relationship develop out of nowhere. He'd assumed that it was just a situational exploitation; there was nothing behind it, just a shag. As he spoke, however, he wondered if his subconscious was telling him their stories, that they'd fallen in love. It was sobering, and as he spoke, staring into Sherlock's now-cerulean eyes, he felt something shift. He was telling a story that hadn't been written yet, still drafting.

On top of the realizations from earlier in the morning, it was just that much too much.

The changes on Sherlock's face drifted from amusement to a dawning realization—then a cold, hard shutting down. A veil of thick indifference fell over Sherlock's eyes like a blindfold.

"Isn't that nice." Sherlock spun on his heel and carefully drew the dressing gown tight over his chest. "I'll leave you to your research, then. Good day, John."

John stared at the empty space in front of him, his lips pressed into a tense pucker.

_Alright, what?_

* * *

_Abort. Data collection efforts, abort. Sufficient data collected._

_Hypothesis disproven. Idiot. _

_Of course John Watson isn't interested in you._

Sherlock collapsed to his bed, trembling. He took a deep, shuddering breath, held it, and let it go. Then he retreated into the favorite, secret room in his Mind Palace to review his bittersweet new treasures.


	5. Azure Ocean, Deep As Tides

Sherlock was nothing if not observant. It didn't take him long to sort out John Watson's schedule of comings and goings, so he knew how to plan his day to minimize contact with his flatmate. It really was quite simple: for four days, Sherlock became nocturnal. Whatever catnaps he took were during the day when John was most likely at home.

If he composed something new on the violin, it may or may not have been very sad and/or exceedingly pathetic.

If he ate, it may have been toast with butter and jam, just like John would make him. And every time he had to make his own tea, he may have taken it with a splash of milk exactly as John took his.

He lived with the man he missed with all his secret heart.

What had happened? He'd kept this thing tightly shut away for years; there had been no threat that it would overwhelm his defenses and flare out of control. Why had he been so eager to believe the idea that John could be exploring an alternative sexuality, all for Sherlock's sake?

_Untenable_, that incurable romantic he'd thought locked away whispered in his ear. Not Mycroft at all. This was the voice of the Peter Pan in him, the passionate youth he'd cut away from himself and exiled so he could hide behind a wall of indifference. He was back, and he was all but in charge.

Was it too late?

Then, as the overripe angst of his situation ebbed on the fourth day, his mind came alive to an unproved part of his conclusions:

_Do you know he's writing?_

Aha. No, he did not. He had to find out if John was writing.

* * *

_The chicken or the egg?_

John sat at breakfast, eating his toast and drinking his tea, this charming little phrase turning circles in his mind. _Egg or chicken? Chicken or egg?_

_Was Sherlock in a snit because of our last exchange, or did our last exchange happen as a result of impending snit?_

He drew his hand down over his careworn face. Sometimes being a flatmate to a deranged genius made him feel twenty years younger. Sometimes it made him feel ridiculously old.

"John."

He sat up, so startled he almost tipped his chair backwards. He struggled to his feet and turned to his flatmate. "God, Sherlock."

The haughty savant put his chin in the air and took a deep breath. "I would like breakfast. Please." The _Please_ seemed very much like an afterthought, thrown in simply to cut off an objection.

John gaped like a fish off and on for a few seconds before shaking his head and turning back to the toaster.

"Eggs, please," Sherlock said. "Quite hungry."

"When was the last time you ate?"

"Two days ago?"

"Git."

"Busy."

"Case?"

"Mm, no."

John considered asking, but decided it was probably better not to know. "Heard you composing. Something . . .happen?"

"Mm?"

"Sounded sad."

"Certain keys do."

"So you were just composing for the key of D minor as an exercise."

Sherlock shrugged. If he was surprised that John's clarinet lessons had given him a basic understanding of music theory, it didn't show.

"So what's on, then?"

"May I read what you've written so far?"

John froze. Again. He just realized that the motion seemed like the actions of a prey animal terrified for its life. "What?"

"Come now, John. I can help you. I'll read what you've written and let you know if it's interesting or even possessing of a plot."

_Damn._

"There's nothing, Sherlock."

"Nothing?"

"Not a word."

"Then—"

"Just haven't started."

"It is difficult to make a start."

John nodded. Had he just bought himself time, or managed to come up with an excuse to shelve the thing altogether?

He should have known he could never be so lucky. "I would like to be a part of your creative process."

"I. Er."

"John, I know we haven't had an extensive discussion about my . . .former relationships . . .."

"You've had them?"

Sherlock's responding glare could only be described as _scalding_.

"Right. Sorry. Go on."

"If I had to wear a label at all, I suppose one might refer to me as gay."

"Irene Adler," John stammered before he could stop himself. He really should give himself a good wank and clear away all this ridiculous cross-wiring. He'd avoided it for the past four days, however. He was afraid of what might happen, and what he might say.

Sherlock sighed. "The Woman. She was certainly something special, but I was not attracted to her."

"You . . .you weren't?"

"You remember, John, how I told you I found out her fascination with me?"

"Physiological response to arousal."

Sherlock nodded. "I exhibited none of those signs during any exchange with her. I appreciated her quick wit, but I was not attracted sexually."

"Right."

"John, listen. I know you're not gay. I cannot imagine what would therefore compel you to write a story involving homosexual romance and, presumably, copulation. If I let you continue you will advance for publication something that, at best, can be considered undercooked, and at worst, insultingly insincere."

John hadn't considered that . . .mainly because he hadn't considered _actually _writing a book.

"I'm still sketching the story, Sherlock."

"Then let me assist from the beginning of your project. From what you told me the other day, you have a solid story."

"And you want to be listed in the Acknowledgments."

"Far more ambitious than that. I'm aiming for the dedication." Then Sherlock snapped him a wink that was almost exactly like the first one, those several years ago during their first meeting.

With a violent surge of affection, John nodded. "Alright."

_What?_

"Excellent. When do we start?"

John took a deep breath. "Tomorrow morning, yeah?"

Sherlock nodded. "Right."

The eggs were devoured. If John bit down into his pillow when he came into his hand that night, nobody knew any better . . .and if the words he swallowed were _Sherlock, please, God, azure ocean deep as tides Sherlock!_—well, what does it matter?


	6. The Mercurial Peter Pan

"So what will you call this book?"

"Sherlock."

"What? Begin at the beginning, as in David Copperfield."

"With the title."

"Yes."

"No. And before you protest, Sherlock, I imagine a line in the book will resonate once it's written. Let's not get bogged down."

Sherlock gave him the stone-face regularly dispatched against Mycroft. "I will not get bogged down."

"Fine. Okay, so, these blokes—"

"Sam and Jake."

"Sherlock."

"I've named them for you. Sam Williams and Jake Horton."

John sighed. He turned the page in his notebook and scrawled down the names. "Fine. Sam and Jake. They're assigned to the same company in Afghanistan. They hit it off immediately, right? Best mates from the start."

"Like us."

John blinked hard, then felt a delighted smile spread across his face. "Yes. Rather like us."

* * *

_Or like you and the man you loved._

Sherlock bit back the words. It would not do to let them out. It was just a suspicion at this point, but he began to wonder if it wasn't, indeed, the inspiration behind John's little foray into literature.

Not that he would be disappointed to learn that John had experimented, of course. He'd just rather believe that he could find a way to seduce his friend through his mind. There would be no way in if this wasn't a creative exercise, but rather a memoriam to a love he couldn't acknowledge head-on.

"So," John continued, "they spend all their time hunkered down, waiting for death, and they do what mates do—they talk. Nothing is off the table. They share their life stories and their hopes and fears for when they return home. They exchange favorite movies and argue over hot actresses and models. They play cards, they sing to each other—badly—and they share food. It's friendship."

"So what's the trigger?"

"What?"

Sherlock sighed, covering his bittersweet heartbreak with arrogant impatience. "The trigger, John! At what point does this fond friendship turn to a romance?"

_Tell me the love story, you sot. Tell me how it was to kiss him for the first time, this man you loved and hid from me._

"Oh. Well." John stammered a bit. "That's more . . .difficult."

Sherlock groaned in frustration. "Don't tell me then."

"This is the part I need your help with, Sherlock," John stammered, a flush creeping into his cheeks.

_John needs my help._

A visceral reaction to that. Sherlock's Lost Boy, that wild romance at the heart of him, jerked so violently he had to cough to cover it up. That side of him was growing stronger. The middle couldn't hold.

"Sherlock?"

_He needs my help to jar his memory. He needs to talk it out._

"How?" he managed to ask through the blockage in his throat.

"Let's . . .be friends."

"Best mates."

"Yes."

Sherlock nodded once. "Yes. Right." He sank into his chair in the sitting room. "Is this where we . . .talk?"

John wouldn't meet his gaze. He sat in his own chair and glared at the wall. "Yes."

"What do we talk about?"

"Whatever."

"Hopes and fears, was that it?"

John nodded.

"I'm afraid of the disappearance of bees."

John whipped his head up. "What?"

"Colony collapse disorder. The population of bees has been in decline since . . .well, historically since the eighteen nineties. Thirty percent loss in one year alone. Switzerland suffered a fifty percent loss last May."

"Oh." John sat back, apparently stunned.

"Cataclysmic. They're responsible for the pollination of one-third of the world's crops, John."

"Bees."

"Yes."

"One of your greatest fears. The disappearance of bees."

"You're taking the piss."

"Sherlock—no. I'm not. I sincerely did not know you had this on your hard drive."

Sherlock shrugged lightly. "I am fascinated by bees. Always have been. I was stung by a queen as a child. I was proud of that; thought it made me special."

"Ah."

"Your turn."

"My . . .turn?"

"I've told you one of my fears. It's your turn."

"It doesn't work in turns, Sherlock."

"No?"

"No. When you're in a combat situation, sometimes you just . . .say something, so somebody will have heard it. All the things you can't say at home, or the things you realize you'd never said but meant to say. You say those things to your mates on the front lines. You tell them everything, even the things you can't tell your best friends at home."

"Like the time you told me about when you drove Harry home after that hideous Christmas party disaster, and she assumed it had been Clara, and that's why she decided to marry her."

John nodded. "I thought I was going to die."

"Otherwise you might not have told me."

"Right."

"Mm." Sherlock tented his fingers under his chin. "So we have these chats of fears and hopes at crime scenes."

John shook his head, that gorgeous guileless smile of his beaming full force at Sherlock. "Fine. Crime scenes."

"What next?"

"We don't have to do all this at one go."

"Good." Sherlock was exhausted. Hiding that other side of him, the increasingly desperate and needy side of him, was taxing. He needed a lie down and possibly a nicotine patch or two to relax his jangled nerves. He went to his room and closed the door behind him, then collapsed to his bed, his eyes screwed shut.

_I told you to be careful_, Mycroft's weird little voice whispered in his ear.

_Too late_, that mercurial Peter Pan retorted.


	7. Nightmares

**_Page 7, the notebook of Dr. JH Watson:_**

_Tuesday_

Sherlock interrupted his inspection of a victim's foot and asked me, "What do you hope to be doing in five years?"

Lestrade did not seem the least bit flustered by this.

I told him I hoped I'd figured out a way to compel him to empathise with the common people.

Lestrade snorted.

_Wednesday_

Woke at 3AM to the sound of Sherlock in my room, perched at the edge of my bed . . .and singing. He has a surprisingly pleasant voice. Why surprising, John? I don't know. I was expecting something not so…melodious. I guess. I shooed him out of my room and proceeded to not sleep.

_Thursday_

Sherlock told me that he hoped my nose did not heal broken. I was sitting in the back of an ambulance draped in a shock blanket, my flatmate holding a flannel against my face and trying to stop the flow of blood. My mouth tasted like iron. I remember being glad this wasn't going to be the time he tried to kiss me for the first time. I giggled and did not answer when he asked me why I was laughing.

_Friday_

Apparently Sherlock does occasionally listen. He remembered that I'd once told him I enjoyed James Bond movies, and he brought home _For Your Eyes Only_ and _A View to a Kill_. Those were probably in the Tesco bargain bin, but I gladly sat through them with him and even appreciated his mockery of the thin plots. He sat a little closer on the sofa than usual. Note: Shock blankets effectively cover aspiring erections.

* * *

What John did not write, but thought under the surface of all of his entries: _I think I'm falling in love._

It was true. He knew it from the way his whole body lit up at Sherlock's approach. He'd experienced something similar before, of course; he'd always felt some sort of excitement around Sherlock, but it mostly excluded his cock. Not anymore. He hadn't had a wank in nearly two weeks that didn't feature his consulting detective.

They'd shared conversation everywhere: at the morgue while Molly watched, agog; at the Met while the Yarders watched, agog; at dinner together while fellow diners watched, agog (because Sherlock had no shame in the stories of human dissections and fungal growths), and at home while Mrs. Hudson no doubt eavesdropped, agog. It was conversation for its own sake, words that they'd never shared, and it was wonderful and unusual and brilliant. And would very likely be the death of him.

Then came the card games . . .so many card games. Sherlock learned and dispatched every card game John had ever heard of. He seemed to particularly enjoy any game he could win by card-counting. John often woke where he'd fallen asleep at the kitchen table, his cards splayed out in front of him and Sherlock scowling at him disapprovingly.

"At least try to hide your hand from me, John. You've made this game exceedingly dull. We'll have to start over."

God help him, John wasn't sure he'd ever had such a good time.

* * *

Sherlock was miserable.

He knew he was coming to the trigger of the story, the pivot point wherein all emotions would be revealed during some no-doubt epic first kiss. Would this be when John told him, finally, what that felt like for him? Or would he have to (_get to)_ demonstrate?

He could tell it wouldn't be long because John was giving him a certain _look_ with increasing frequency. He wasn't sure how to describe it. His pupils weren't exactly dilated. His respiration didn't increase; rather, it often seemed to stop altogether. If he'd been shown a flashcard of this expression on John's face, he'd have to call it fear.

But why would John fear him?

That night, for the sake of relief of his John-induced insomnia and his anxiety that he would soon muck everything up by making some kind of declaration to the owner of his secret heart, Sherlock put his hand down the front of his pyjama bottoms and into his pants for the first time in five years. He hadn't done it sooner for fear he would envision steady, reliable, irritating, sexy, fascinating, beautiful, and utterly _loveable_ John Watson in the throes of passion.

He had been right. All of those damnable feelings he'd stored up in his Mind Palace, all of those experiences and memories and fantasies poured over him, and if he came screaming, his mouth clamped down hard in his pillow, imagining his hand was John's mouth—then what did it matter?

* * *

_PAIN. My shoulder. Bullet. My life is over._

_PAIN. My Sherlock. Pavement. My life is over._

John writhed in his bed, trapped between two colossal machines. They were grinding him between them, those two pivot points in his life: the true beginnings and endings, the Alpha and Omega moments. The end of his life as an army doctor—the pride, the service, the accomplishments—and the beginning of his life as Sherlock's friend. The end of the easy, early part of his life as Sherlock's friend and the beginning of a stream of words unsaid, words he'd had yet to redeem.

He couldn't seem to get free of this. The pain was too much, and he started to scream . . ..

"John! John, wake up!"

He woke mid-scream, his hands clutching at Sherlock's thin tee shirt. "Sherlock," he sobbed, overcome by the emotion his twin dreams had released in him. It was too much loss, too much sorrow, and the grief and pain felt fresh as if he were in the middle of those awful days.

"Here," Sherlock said, bending closer. John pressed his face into the pale column of his friend's throat. He could smell the essence of the man there: under the posh shampoo, under the faint hint of the detergent they shared—there, the comforting musky spice that was unique to Sherlock Holmes. He could feel the low rumble in that throat before he could hear the word borne by the thunder: "Nightmare?"

"Yes," John whispered. His lips grazed warm flesh as he answered, just the briefest brush of his bottom lip against Sherlock's neck. "Two of them, right on top of each other."

Sherlock's fingers in his hair, cradling his head; Sherlock's skin under his lips; Sherlock's arms around him. His body absorbed the warmth and comfort of the moment . . .and then the sweetness of his affection tipped forward into something less innocent as he felt Sherlock's hot breath against the thin skin of his forehead. He pulled away to look into his eyes and saw the large black pools of Sherlock's pupils thinly ringed in vivid silver. He tugged at Sherlock's shirt, wanting him closer, ever, infinitely closer, on top of him, inside him where he could never disappear again.

"John."

"Don't go."

The violinist's callused fingertips brushed over the deep hollows under John's eyes. The smallest quirk of a smile, then: "Right. I'll stay here tonight."

Was this the right time, then? Should there be a kiss now? He couldn't think, more crippled than usual by his fear and doubt. He didn't doubt that he wanted Sherlock; he was barely functioning, but he knew that there were no limitations now on his desire for the man now crawling into bed beside him. He had none of the standard, waking reservations about his height or deep voice or lack of breasts. He wanted to touch him, to discover all the things that might make him moan. Was he noisy in bed?

Odd that he didn't have an erection, no matter the fever of his need. Yes, he wanted those things with Sherlock, more than he ever had . . .but not tonight. Right now he wanted to be held and he wanted rest, sleep free of bullets or freefalls.

"Lay down, John," Sherlock said softly as he gently pulled John into his arms. "Come, now."

Still trembling and disoriented from his nightmares, John sank gratefully into the refuge of Sherlock's embrace and drifted away into the sleep he craved.

* * *

For quite a while, Sherlock did not dream. He stayed awake, cradling John loosely, lost to the romantic side of his nature. He watched John sleep, every muscle relaxed, completely surrendered and vulnerable. The attitude spoke volumes of trust and intimacy. It was too tender a moment for analysis, but analyze Sherlock did: He studied the moonlight in John's hair, the smattering of laugh lines around his eyes, the curl of his ears, the strong build of his square hands. He spent more time than he should gazing into the face he thought he'd known so well, but this chance to let his eyes drink their fill without reproach or suspicion or discomfort was too dear to pass up.

Even so, Sherlock did eventually abandon himself to sleep. His body slid closer to John's until they were pressed chest to chest and heart to heart.


	8. The Lady or the Tiger

John woke to the sound of Sherlock typing.

He rolled over to find his best friend and flatmate seated up in his bed, back against the headboard, lower half primly folded under the duvet, and laptop in his lap. His eyes were scanning rapidly as he typed. There was a light in Sherlock's eyes—_The Game is on._

"Case?" John murmured, his voice thick with sleep.

"Mm," Sherlock confirmed. "A little research. Apparently there's a group of American _tourists_ meeting with some MI5 today. Mycroft wants us to pay them a visit and find out what business _tourists_ could possibly have with British agents."

"Sounds dangerous," John said.

Sherlock smirked. "Nothing we can't handle." He closed his laptop with a _snick_ and leaned over John. "Sleep well?"

John had a brief, bittersweet vision that this was what they could be to each other—twenty years from now, if they managed to keep each other alive, this could be the routine for nearly every morning. It was all he could do to keep himself from begging for that. "Very, thanks."

"Good." Sherlock's eyes cut away and he flipped the duvet up, clearly intent on leaving John's bed—but right before things got swept away into the highest gear, the _only_ gear during cases, he leaned in close and pressed a dry kiss to John's forehead. "Hurry, John. Much to do."

John was frozen and didn't follow his flatmate—his _love_—right away. He simply stared at where Sherlock had been reclined in bed just a moment ago. He pressed his hands against the spot. Still warm from Sherlock's body. He pressed his cheek against those warm sheets.

"John!" Sherlock shouted from the sitting room. "Move!"

And grinning, John Watson did as he was told.

* * *

Sherlock made the executive decision to have John interview two of the MI5 agents while he went on to perform surveillance on the _tourists_ and determine everything he could of their true identities and purpose. He would later blame his scattered logic on the fact that he couldn't stop thinking about the night before, the simple joy of falling asleep with John in his arms, of waking up next to him, of watching him wake beside him. He was a lovesick fool, and he didn't want it to show. It was going to be statistically impossible to keep his adoration a secret much longer, but . . .just a little while. A couple of hours, that was all he needed to gather his wits, solve this buggering case, get Mycroft off his back, and get this thing with John sorted back in the safety of Baker Street.

_John didn't mind the kiss. No shouting. No fuming. He had come downstairs, smiling. God. Could it be? _

_"Sherlock. Oh, Sherlock, oh God, thunder and skin-silk and magic, my Sherlock!"_

_What if that hadn't been the end of a nightmare?_

The _tourists_ were dull, for the most part, and completely transparent. They were crime boss royalty—one woman and three men of varying age—and they moved like they were used to being watched. They cast repeated, furtive glances of their shoulders and never seemed relaxed or the least bit interested in their surroundings. _Dull_. He wondered if things were any more interesting on John's end of the case.

As he watched these uninteresting people stand in queue at the London Eye, he was seized from behind and felt the insistent press of chloroform-saturated cloth over his nose and mouth. _Stupid, stupid!_ He chided himself as he slid into unconsciousness.

* * *

Sherlock regained consciousness and was surprised to find that he was unbound. He let his eyes focus, then discovered why he was unbound: He was in perfect, pitch black darkness. He was sure the surface under his body was metallic, maybe steel. He didn't know the size of the space. He smelled the Thames, a thick, wet smell that only Londoners could truly love.

A thick moan from just a few feet away. _John._

"Sherlock?"

"Here."

"Right." The muzzy confusion was draining from the doctor's voice. "So, another mess we're in."

"Appears so."

"And you have a plan, yeah?"

"No."

"I'm sorry—no?"

"Not yet. Not sure where we are yet, except for perhaps on a boat on the Thames."

A beat or two as John absorbed what Sherlock was saying. "This could be bad."

"Are you alright?"

"Apart from having my hands tied behind my back and my legs trussed at the knees and the ankles, I think I'm fine. Chloroform?"

"Bound?" Sherlock felt around in the darkness, moving towards John's voice. His movement caused the whole structure they were in to move.

"Fuck!" John cursed, his voice hollow and unsteady.

"Not a ship," Sherlock said. He pawed at the floor, trying harder to understand what they'd been stuck in. Definitely a steel container.

"Leave that, Sherlock, and get me untied!"

Sherlock grimaced. He'd just cut himself on something, a hard, jagged bit of steel jutting up from the floor of whatever they were in. He was bleeding and he knew it. John was right, though: He had to be unbound so he could help figure out where they were and, more importantly, how to get free. He cautiously scooted forward, moving his hands quickly—until he found the bars. His heart sank, but he proceeded to move to either side of the steel bars separating him from John. He found the end of the container instead, eight feet wide with three-inch-diameter metal bars fixed at eight inch intervals.

"We're separated. Bars. I can't . . .I can't get to you." Sherlock sighed.

"Bars?"

"Metal bars."

"Gentlemen."

The voice was feminine with a distinctly American accent. It was coming from a speaker overhead, perhaps two feet above him. "Who are you?" he hissed.

"Tsk tsk, Sherlock Holmes. You know I won't tell you that. I will tell you just about everything else you want to know, however."

"Why?"

"Because I feel the need to offer you a choice."

"Choice?"

"Soon I'm going to open the door on your side of the little box you've been stuck in. You will have the opportunity to walk out of the box and apprehend me and my family, then take us before all of New Scotland Yard and have them begin the inquiry into our massive drug operation that's been bringing millions of dollars' worth of high-quality cocaine from South America and through the United States, here, to London, and all under the British government's eagle eyes."

"What's the choice?"

"If you choose to apprehend us, we will kill Dr. Watson."

"No you won't."

"Oh, we will." There was a resounding boom on the outside of their metal box and it lurched, swaying sickeningly before coming to a dead stop. "You are both currently suspended from a hoist seventy feet above the river. We've just docked the container against a platform. At this point, the river is about twenty feet deep. The fall isn't the greatest danger, of course, but Dr. Watson is bound, and I'm sure you've discovered by now you can't change that." She paused to let Sherlock do the math for himself. "At some point soon—time isn't important, really—a trap door will open under Dr. Watson and he will fall into the river, still bound. At that exact same moment, a door will open at the far end of your side of the container. I will be waiting there for you, and you can do whatever you'd like to me and mine. However, if you choose to let us go, one hundred and twenty seconds after Dr. Watson is dropped, we will open another trap door under your side of the container. Perhaps you will have the time to save your precious doctor. Perhaps you won't. You definitely will not have time to do both." She paused again. "You do not have your phones so, even if you knew where you were—which I doubt—you would not be able to phone for help. It's the classic choice, Mr. Holmes. You can solve the case and drag us to justice or you can save your . . ._friend_."

The speaker goes not only quiet, but completely dead, deactivated with a resounding click.

"How long?" Sherlock shouts. "How long do we have?"

"Sherlock . . ."

"Shut up. Let me think."

"Sherlock!"

"What?" he snapped.

"You're bleeding."

"It's nothing."

"I can smell it."

"It's nothing, John. Now please, _shut up_ so I can think."

"I'm not writing a book."

Sherlock's mind blanked. "What did you say?"

"There's no book, you great git."

"The . . .websites . . ."

"Research of a more personal nature," John said, and Sherlock could hear the smile in his voice. "I was trying to expand my horizons, but I couldn't—it wasn't doing anything for me."

"Why were you trying to . . ." Sherlock trailed off. "Oh. John. _John._"

"I think you finally understand, don't you?"

"I-I don't think I do. What are you saying, John? Be clear, because . . ." _Because my heart can't bear this. "_Because we don't have time for hashing things out the slow way."

"I thought. God, Sherlock, I wanted to seduce you."

Sherlock felt everything inside him go still as the supernova of that thought burned through everything else. It didn't matter that they were locked in a rigged shipping container suspended seventy feet over the Thames, that there was a madwoman ready to tumble his world into chaos, that Sherlock was doing anything so mundane as _bleeding_. "Why?"

"Because there's no one in the world more important to me. I can't imagine leaving you, and . . .lately I've thought that, maybe, if you're agreeable—"

"It wasn't doing anything for you," Sherlock said, holding John's own words up in front of him like a shield, his last defense.

"The internet porn wasn't, no. But, God, Sherlock. The thought of _you_ did something for me."

That morning, that magnificent morning. "_Sherlock. Oh, Sherlock, oh God, thunder and skin-silk and magic, my Sherlock!"_

There was no way Sherlock was going to let John drop alone.

"Sherlock?"

"John, I need you to try to slip through whatever's binding you. Can you do that for me?"

"I've been trying. My arms are numb; no blood flow. Tried dislocating my shoulder, but can't get the angle right."

Sherlock reached as far as he could through the bars, but the spacing didn't allow more than his arm up to the elbow. Even so, he flailed around in the dark, reaching for John, for anything he could hold. Of course he'd been placed well out of reach. Sherlock started feeling a little lightheaded. "I have to think."

"Sherlock, I love you."

"John, please." Something painful was happening to his eyes, a fierce stabbing sensation as his tear ducts came online for the first time since the fall from Bart's. "Hush."

"This is something I'll regret not saying if I don't say it."

"You won't die."

"You aren't God."

Sherlock sat in frustrated silence for a moment, locked out of all but one room in his Mind Palace. While that room was comforting, he needed _answers_ right now, not comfort. He needed to know how he could be expected to save John from this locked box.

"I have never even kissed another man," John whispered.

Sherlock's veins were screaming with fear. John believed he was going to die and he was giving him all of his confessions. "You're going to feel very silly when we get out of this and you have to look me in the eye tomorrow morning."

"No I won't."

"Why not?"

Instead of an answer, Sherlock heard John scream as the sound of popping metal filled the box, filled his head, _filled the secret room in his Mind Palace, tore open his secret heart_. Another metallic sound ground out approximately ten feet to his right and a security lamp flooded the shipping container.

The woman standing backlit against the security lamp looked like nothing more than a shadow. "Lady or the Tiger, Mr. Holmes. Will you pursue us or wait to see if you can save your doctor?"

She moved away, an open invitation for him to follow.

Sherlock sat cross legged on the floor of the container and waited. Tears ran down his cheeks, but he didn't feel them.

_I will find you. Hold on for me, John. Please. I will find you._

_1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6…_


	9. My Steel, My Gun, My Soldier

John fell screaming, his hands bound behind him and his legs tied together. He fell like a deadweight, then he thought of Sherlock.

_Wait. He'll come for you. Just wait._

He took a deep, deep breath and braced himself for the slap of the Thames. It was worse than he expected, and he was expecting something between fiberglass and wood. This felt like that time he'd been playing superheroes with Harry and he'd taken a header off the building his family had been living in at the time. There'd been an old mattress on the concrete—Harry had insisted—but old padding over old springs over concrete wasn't pleasant.

It was like that, but add to it the bracing cold of the water and the shock of being unable to move and you're about there.

John the Soldier had reported for duty, and just in time, thank God. He shut out the shock and refused to admit the fear. He had faith in his comrade-in-arms; he had faith in Sherlock. _Hunker down, Captain. He's coming._

He ran a brief experiment, moving his body to a horizontal position and trying to move his hips in such a way to emulate a mermaid kick—_merman kick, you poof—_but soon abandoned it for two reasons: one, there was no evidence he was getting anywhere with this and it wasted valuable oxygen, and two, if he did manage to kick himself far from his point of impact, how could Sherlock be expected to find him? No, this was a bad idea. Better to just sink and wait.

He started by playing a game to see how long he could hold his breath. He was disappointed by the results. After only a minute and a half, he felt his lungs burn; after only fifteen more seconds it became far too much. _Must practice this when we get back to Baker Street. Won't that be a laugh—_

John fought it, but his lips parted after two minutes and took a convulsive lungful of the Thames.

The loss of consciousness was a swift mercy, and behind his closed eyes he saw Sherlock's own, rich, bottle-green, and deeply disappointed in him.

* * *

_119. 120._

Sherlock was ready when the box opened up under him. He dove. This was not the flailing leap from Bart's, the spread-eagled effort to slow the fall and minimize the impact. This was as graceful as any Olympic effort, and he streaked towards the Thames, his coat billowing around him and blood streaking from the still-open wound in his hand like the tail of a furious comet.

He took several deep, whooping breaths as he approached the surface, then let out a small huff as he sliced into the water. He'd been in the Thames before; it was never a pleasant experience, and it was still mucky enough to make it difficult to see, but his concentration right now was singular.

It was time to undo all the damage he'd done, all the mischief caused by his Peter Pan doppelganger. He would give up on all this nonsense, all the madness of the fantasy sketched in John's bed, that ridiculous vision of the life they could share together, pressed skin to skin in the stillness of the night. That single kiss he'd given John as he'd risen from bed, that mere wisp of a thing pressed in haste against his temple, that would be it. It would be enough.

No, better still to summarily burn that secret room and its stash of cozy little John-related trinkets. It was damaging. And while he was at it, he would carve that secret heart out of himself and throw it on the fire. He had a flatmate and business partner. It would not, could not get more complicated than that, because this was the result—

Right ahead of him, John, glass-eyed and sinking in the water.

Sherlock pushed forward and bit back his recognition of the burn building in his lungs and the vast discomfort in his injured hand. He would get his _heart beloved John_—friend—out of this mess. He would explain to John that involving himself in this little book project was a mistake. He would stay out of John's way. That would be that.

_Just let him live._

He positioned himself behind John and slid his left arm around John's shoulders, leaning back and taking his weight against his body. He then kicked hard for the surface. In thirty seconds he emerged gasping and swam for the shore. He dragged John to the shore and quickly cut the extravagant binding from his hands, then laid him out on his back.

On his knees, bent over John, hands pressed to his sternum, counting to thirty. Open his mouth, sweep for blockages, tilt the chin up, pinch the nose closed, seal his mouth, two breaths, two breaths more. Back to his sternum . . .

_Damn you, John Watson. Not here. Not like this. Not after what you said. You have to give me a chance to say it too. I don't care. Come back, John. I will say it, I swear._

Chin up, nose sealed, mouths, breaths.

* * *

_"Sherlock."_

_"Mm."_

_"Sherlock!"_

_"John."_

_The light was coming from behind Sherlock and it bathed him in an aqueous aura. Even backlit, John could see that Sherlock's face was breathtaking, all cares wiped away, lines eased. It was the face he'd first seen in Bart's lab, bent over some damned experiment or other._

"Mike, can I borrow your phone?"

_"You were kissing me."_

_"You didn't seem to mind."_

_"Why would I mind?"_

_Sherlock leaned forward and there was mischief in his whisper: "Because you're not gay."_

_Sherlock's hands in his, slippery, wet. A slight tang of blood-iron and the Thames._

_"No, I'm not. But I love you."_

_Sherlock's eyes drifted shut and a strange sound like a fluttering sigh rose past his lips._

_"And I want you, Sherlock."_

_"Do you?" Sherlock's lips brushed over John's ear and his voice, that beautiful thunder, the growl of an electric bass, trembled in the stillness._

_"So much." John felt his cheeks erupt in crimson. "Do you want me?"_

_"Come back to me," Sherlock whispered, placing his right hand over John's heart and his left hand in John's wet hair, tilting his head back for another kiss. "Come back to me and I will show you in a thousand ways, small and large, how much I want you. Stay, John. Please." _

_His mouth ghosted down over John's and he breathed into his mouth. The hand over his heart drifted to the middle of his chest and Sherlock struck him, _hard_, directly on his sternum._

* * *

"Wake up! Please!"

All of Sherlock's discipline was gone now, all that steady determination he'd shown when he'd first pulled John from the water. He was slamming his fist repeatedly against John's sternum, bent over him, his lips trembling.

He didn't even realize he was babbling. "Don't do this to me. Not now. Not after last night. John, God, please come back. Stay."

He leaned forward again, pushing his mouth against John's, and he breathed his confession into that still and silent mouth: _"I love you."_ Then he breathed, forced air past the man's throat down into his lungs, and punched his sternum again, hard.

John surged upward and Sherlock pulled back in time to avoid the flood of river water that gushed from John's open mouth. The sound of that first ragged, whooping breath would be stored under glass in that secret room, guarded by John's own gun. Sherlock fell onto his back beside John, watching him carefully as he oriented himself and gulped that incomparable London night air.

John's eyes finally met Sherlock's. They watched each other for a moment, no words passing between them. Two pairs of eyes glittered in the night, and the ribbon of power that always existed between them, that living thing that most people would have seen as _Friendship_, that some few had assumed was _Lust_, grew stronger, wilder, and more out of control. It was neither that lascivious, tawdry _Lust _nor simply _Friendship_, not anymore. It was the thing that some only called _More_, that others called _True._

Sherlock sat up. "I have to untie your legs." He set to it, and as he worked he felt his chest constrict. By the time he was done he was sobbing.

"Sherlock."

"You may not do that to me again, not until—"

"Until what?"

Sherlock turned his full attention back to John's face. His eyes were soft and a small smile of amusement lit his features. It was lovely, certainly, but it wasn't the time for loveliness. "Don't you understand that I nearly got you _killed? _Why aren't you furious with me?"

"Sherlock—"

"Perhaps . . .perhaps we should find you somewhere else to live. Mycroft can find a nice place for you, far away from me and the madness of all of this."

"Sherlock—"

"You can go back to medicine, perhaps even as a GP. Yes, that would be good. Safe."

"Sherlock!"

Sirens approaching, great loud things, and now that he'd mentioned Mycroft he was fairly certain he knew how they'd been dispatched.

"Listen to me, you daft git," John said, grabbing Sherlock by the arm and pressing his fingers in deep. "Did you forget everything I said? I love you. Perhaps it's not in you to love me in return, but I've chosen this life with you, and you'll break me if you push me away." John's voice caught on the last few words. He turned his face back to the river and released Sherlock's arm. "You'll break my heart."

_No. Never that_, Sherlock thought disconsolately_. If I can't be good at safeguarding your life, John, at least I can be good at safeguarding your heart._

* * *

John had never felt anything quite so excruciating as the pain of being released, being told he would be reassigned . . .again. His release from service had led to a despair so black he wasn't sure he'd ever recovered. Now he was being told it was time to go again, time to be practical, to stop living with a dream and a madman and to do something _normal_ as if that was a prize and not a death sentence.

He'd fought it, arguing his case as well as he could in his exhausted condition, but he had no resources left. He needed to rest. He needed to sleep and let those who knew better than he did decide his fate. He was tired of fighting, especially this man.

Emotion rolled over him as Sherlock pulled him close. "John, my steel, my gun, my fierce soldier," he whispered, his deep voice filled with a softness John wasn't sure he'd ever heard before. "Oh, John, please don't." Sherlock's fingers wiped away John's tears. He opened his eyes to see Sherlock gazing down at him, and for just a moment he recalled the image of a dream, Sherlock's wet curls backlit by the moon and the stars and some distant street lights. "If you want me, John, I'm yours." A small smile, a precious thing, and John's heart truly remembered how to beat at the sight of it. "I've always been, you know. Always yours."

The sirens were chasing them down now, but John couldn't be bothered to care. Sherlock was bent over him on the shore of the Thames, and the kiss they shared may have been simple, but it was full of the power of their _True_.


	10. Take Me Home

John woke with a vague sense of warmth and discomfort over his left side. His brain was muzzy, and he wasn't sure of the things he'd been pretty solid on for the past—well, however long dreams lasted, eons or millennia or seconds. It was disappointing, because for a while there he'd been convinced that something fundamental had shifted between him and Sherlock, that there was a profound new warmth, a sense of the New, of the _True_, out and acknowledged and ripe to be acted on—

Something tickled his nose. His eyes flew open. He immediately saw that he was in a hospital room; his own pulse beeped overhead, and an IV line dangled in the left side of his vision. _Yes, the pinch of a needle, right elbow. I'll look like a junkie if I keep getting deducted. _An internal giggle sounded through his mind.

He looked down to investigate what had tickled his nose and found the source of his sense of warmth. His heart shuddered at the sight of a mop of dark brown curls spread over his collarbone. Sherlock's ear was directly over his heart. Judging by the depth of the man's breathing, he was sleeping shallowly.

_Wonder if he'd be proud of my deduction_, John thought to himself as a giddy smile lit his face. He slowly lifted his left hand, free of wires and needles, and lay it gently on Sherlock's head.

Sherlock sat back, just far enough to look into John's face. His pupils expanded as he took him in, and his long fingers curled around John's hand where it still rested in his hair. John noted an extensive wrapping covering Sherlock's right hand.

"Hullo," John said simply. He hoped his smile was calm and reassuring, not giddy, too forward—not so much to scare the man away. Sherlock only continued to stare. John sighed and pressed his head back into his thin hospital pillows. He flipped his hand around and took hold of Sherlock's wrapped hand. "Let's have a look, then."

Sherlock cut is eyes to that simple touch, his hand in John's, and the features of his face tightened with a wave of emotion, then just as abruptly gentled. "It's nothing."

"Let me be the judge of that."

"Four stitches. Nothing."

"Knew I smelled blood on you."

Sherlock gave him a small smile. "Lost more than I thought. Your fellow medical professionals aren't very accommodating. I'm afraid I tested their faithfulness to the Hippocratic Oath by refusing to leave your side as they performed their tedious transfusions."

"Git."

"My name is Sherlock."

"Say I've forgotten." John released his hand and slid his palm along Sherlock's cheek. Again his hand was covered by Sherlock's own, and he leaned into John's touch, eyes drifting shut as more emotion flooded his face.

"John, did you mean it? Because I'm afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"If you didn't mean it, there's no putting this away. I can't stop it, I can't—"

"Sherlock."

A light whimper, and Sherlock opened his eyes again, fixing them on John. His pupils were blown and his lips trembled. "Say my name again."

"Sherlock."

A shuddering sigh. "John."

"I love you."

Sherlock's smile was rapturous and transcendent in joy. He leaned forward slowly, carefully, and placed a warm, lingering kiss on John's cheek.

"Take me home," John whispered.

"Soon." Sherlock winked. "Paperwork."

"Dull," John groaned.

"Not only that." Sherlock carded his fingers through John's hair, fingernails lightly skimming his scalp and causing a low ripple of excitement to roll down his spine. "Get your rest now, old friend. You won't get it once I get you home." Sherlock's other hand smoothed over John's coverlet, down his torso and over the strengthening bulge between his thighs. Wonder gave way to mischief in Sherlock's eyes. "No rest at all."

* * *

John was in the hospital two days longer than he cared to be, Sherlock knew. He was getting antsy, and the stolen moments of intimacy—kisses increasing in urgency, lingering glances, and Sherlock's teasing caresses—weren't doing anything for the man's composure. It was pleasant and lovely and thrilling, watching John come apart at the seams, stitch by stitch. The fact that it was serving the purpose of reawakening Sherlock's own long-denied libido didn't hurt, of course, but this wasn't a simple case of physical craving. This was profoundly more complicated—and potentially intoxicating—than that. He'd never laid hands on someone he was in love with. Sherlock was determined to take advantage of this slow burning sense of _want_, to draw out the anticipation and feed the fire.

Finally the day came, and Sherlock was able to talk Mycroft—who had caught up with the drug cartel easily enough after the shipping container fiasco—into sending a private car round, this time without his assistant and her watchful eyes.

John drew closer to him, right up against Sherlock's side. Sherlock felt his pulse accelerate and gave his blogger a small smile. "Cases?" John asked.

"I'm not taking any."

"Does Lestrade know?"

"I told him to figure things out for himself, at least for the next few days."

"Mrs. Hudson?"

"On holidays in Cannes."

"Mycroft?"

Sherlock turned more fully towards John. His thumb came up to brush briefly along John's lower lip. "He understands that we need . . .time."

John ducked his head, taking Sherlock's thumb between his lips and running his tongue across the pad. Sherlock gasped. His spine was turning to caramel, and the warmth became almost unbearable when John caught his eyes. He released Sherlock's thumb and whispered, "I want you, Sherlock Holmes."

Sherlock moaned. A month ago such a frank admission of his own need would have embarrassed him, but things were different now. It was true that he'd become adept at hiding his vulnerabilities from the world and even more adept at defusing every attempt to exploit the few vulnerabilities he had. John was one, but there had never been a doubt that he was also the source of his greatest strength. With John, Sherlock's focus and intuition were sharpened, his genius magnified. He trusted John to never hurt him, because he knew John understood how that would unmake everything.

The car stopped. It was time.

They got out of the car with every endeavor at a civilized pace, but by the time they'd entered the privacy of their flat _civility_ was little but a memory. John took the lead, grabbing Sherlock by the lapels of his jacket and slamming him against the wall of the sitting room.

"Since I met you," John said, pushing the jacket off of Sherlock's shoulders, "I've been repeatedly abducted, concussed, covered in explosives, verbally abused, subjected to experiments of questionable scientific merit, tied up, shot at, thrown out of moving vehicles, drugged, and held at gunpoint." He took Sherlock's wrist in his hands and impatiently unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt. "The only thing that didn't make me feel alive was having to watch you say goodbye to me shortly before you jumped off a building. That made me feel dead. Everything else, every single thing else, has been completely worth it to see the way you're looking at me now." He opened Sherlock's cuff and planted a sweet kiss against the pulse point at his wrist.

"John, please," Sherlock moaned.

"No. We're going to take this first time slow."

_First time._ "First time."

John chuckled as he turned his attention to Sherlock's other cuffed wrist. "Do you doubt it? We're going to be doing this _a lot_."

_Dear God._


	11. Bring Your Best Game

Keeping his hands steady had never been a problem for John Watson. No indeed, he had the steadiest trigger finger in his company. Even Mycroft had commented that his hands didn't shake in stressful situations.

_Do not bring Mycroft up again_.

But keeping them from getting ahead of him felt like an exquisite form of torture. Sherlock was urging him on with his voice and his eyes and even his hands, and John had to repeatedly pluck those graceful hands away from what he was doing.

"Have you never taken it slow before?" he asked in exasperation.

"Why would I have?"

This stopped John for a moment. "Why . . .what do you mean, why?"

Sherlock groaned. "We can discuss these things _later_, John. What part of _hurry this up_ are you not understanding?"

"There you are," John said, his voice surprisingly husky. "I was wondering if desire was going to change you on a cellular level."

"Oh, for God's sake," Sherlock said. He rolled his eyes and ripped the jacket from John's body.

John caught his flatmate's wrists in his. His voice was now a low growl. "I've told you before that I have bad days, and believe me, I can and _will_ overpower you if you don't slow down."

"And what if that's what I want?"

John shuddered. "Is it?"

"I want you to get started."

John nodded once, then slid his fingers into Sherlock's shirt. He ripped roughly, sending buttons scattering, and before Sherlock could recover he reached inside and splayed his fingers over that remarkable porcelain chest. Warm, smooth, hard, undeniably male, and so sexy he could hardly bear it. Sherlock inhaled sharply at the skin-to-skin contact, then returned the favor, ripping John's shirt off his body. John surged forward and crushed their mouths together. He was rewarded with a deep, rich groan from deep in Sherlock's chest, and he felt it rumble through the man's ribcage.

"Cuffs, John, these damned cuffs," Sherlock muttered into his mouth.

"Bed," John responded, backing away. It pained him to back away, but the sight of Sherlock Holmes Debauched, curls mussed, eyes blown wide, mouth open and kiss-bruised, shirtless, trembling, and an erection tenting the front of those slim trousers—John gasped. "Bed, _now._"

They moved together, John undoing his shirt cuffs and kicking his shoes off as he entered Sherlock's bedroom. He turned to Sherlock and took his face in his hands, bringing their mouths together again—slowly, tenderly, the kiss full of passion and want and need and, of course, under it all, abiding, overwhelming, disarming love. His tongue was gentle, accommodating as he caressed those full lips, traced the cupid's bow, stroked over Sherlock's tongue. Sherlock returned the attention, exploring John's mouth, tasting, experimenting, refining as he catalogued John's every reaction to what he was doing. John smiled and Sherlock felt it.

"What?"

"You're experimenting on me again."

"No."

"No?"

"John, I'm starting my life with you. How many times will I be given the chance to learn . . .to learn _you_?"

He shuddered. "Carry on, then."

_Starting my life with you._ Those words followed John through the rest of the afternoon and evening.

* * *

Sherlock could feel John shudder at his words, and he didn't back away. _A life together, an extension of the life we share._

He guided John back on the bed, his bed, and resumed their kiss. He slid over John's body, touching, nipping with teeth and lips, slowly unfastening John's trousers and leaning in for yet another kiss.

"Sherlock," John murmured, his voice hushed by his arousal.

"God, John, enough talking." He moved his mouth across John's cheek to the pulse point under his left ear. John shuddered.

"No, listen. I should warn you—"

"You become incoherent when you orgasm."

"I—what? You know?"

"Thunder, skin-silk, and magic, was it?" Sherlock chuckled, his lips now at the hollow of John's throat. He could feel John's moan through his vocal cords, and his erection became uncomfortable.

"Oh, God. I have no idea."

Sherlock licked a line down John's chest and through his downy chest hair to his right nipple. "You don't remember what you say?"

"No."

"This is going to be incredible fun."

"You are a complete menace."

Sherlock pushed John's trousers down and John inhaled sharply as Sherlock's nose tracked the essence of John's scent. He nuzzled into John's crotch. "I'm going to take you into my mouth now, John," he murmured as his nose found that turgid column of flesh. John whimpered. "You'll be my first lover in fifteen years, but I know what I'll do. I'll _hum_ against your cock, John; will you like that?"

"Jesus, Sherlock, get on with it!"

Sherlock leaned back and grinned at John, saw his doctor's extreme arousal, then returned to his cock. His smile gentled and he ran his tongue from the base to the tip, a rich, wet swipe that thoroughly infused his mouth with John's essential flavor. _More data for my secret room, so much more_. He blew gently against that wet skin and John bucked under him. Another smile before Sherlock closed his mouth around the head of John's cock.

"God, Sherlock."

Sherlock hummed, bringing the full force of his voice to bear, and John cried out, something incoherent, a string of babble that made Sherlock wonder if the orgasm was already building. _Too soon!_ he thought, but he couldn't help being a bit overwhelmed by the realization of what he'd done to his John. He cut his eyes up John's torso to his eyes, the navy blue of them shrunk down to a thin ring around his wide pupils. "I want you to watch," Sherlock groaned before taking John all the way to the root, his throat relaxed. His nose came to rest in the ash blond curls in John's crotch.

John gasped, then gasped again as Sherlock fluttered the muscles in his throat. Their eyes were locked in a dangerous dance; they devoured every hint of emotion between them, the sweep of lashes fanning with arousal, the flush of scarlet on lips and cheeks, the sighs and whimpers, and they tried not to tip over into too much too soon. Sherlock pressed his fingers into John's thighs, thumbs stroking upwards, tracing his veins up to their source. John collected his fingers as they skimmed over his heart, then brought two of his fingers into his mouth.

Sherlock groaned and slid his mouth off of John, then back down, sliding his tongue from tip to root. His jaw felt deliciously stretched.

"Sherlock," John said, his mouth working around Sherlock's fingers. "I'm close. I'm so close."

"Mm," Sherlock hummed, again sending the full force of his voice through that lovely, delicious cock. He opened his ears, hungry for whatever words would come from John next and thrilled that he was bringing him to this.

"Sherlock! Christ! Skies full of swans, lazy muse allegro! God, Sherlock!"

John's cock expanded, throbbed, pulsed, and Sherlock noted the taste of his ejaculate as it slid over his tongue and down his throat. Bitter salt, but not unpleasant, and something he'd like to taste again. Soon.

"Come here," John gasped.

Sherlock obeyed, his hands tracking up John's body as he moved. He smiled as he settled against John's neck. "Would you like to know what you said?" he asked around his still-stretched jaw.

John took a deep breath, then let out a light giggle. "Why? Was it impressive?"

"Quite brilliant."

"Keep it for yourself then," John whispered, angling Sherlock's face up for a soul-searing kiss. "In exchange for that _bloody brilliant_ thing you did with your mouth just then."

"It's not a barter, John."

"Even so." John's hand traced a line down Sherlock's throat and further down his chest to the part of him that was straining upwards for the touch. Sherlock closed his eyes and gave him a grateful sigh when that steady hand closed around him.

* * *

John watched as Sherlock's head fell back against his shoulder, as his hips canted forward and drove his cock into John's hand. _First lover in fifteen years. Bloody hell._ A crime, that, but John was willing to let it slide. He'd never been with a man like this before, and he was hoping his profound ignorance wouldn't be so obvious contrasted against the space of Sherlock's memory.

"What do you want from me?" John asked, his voice hushed as he watched this beautiful man come unglued beneath him.

Sherlock groaned. "Everything you can give me, but John." Those unreal prismatic eyes fixed on John again, and he realized that Sherlock was complete in this moment, that sharp intellect wed to this sensual, beautiful _transport_ of his. He alone saw this, and as long as he didn't screw this up, he alone would ever see this. "You don't have to do anything you don't—"

"Everything," John said, taking Sherlock's mouth in another bruising kiss. He could taste himself in that kiss, and now he wanted to taste Sherlock. "I want to, just tell me, teach me."

"John. I can't last, not this time." He pulled John's hand off of him and brought it to his mouth, licked a wide stripe down the center of his palm, and returned it to his straining cock. "Please, just—kiss me. Please."

_Oh_. The feel of Sherlock's beautiful pale cock in his now wet hand was a revelation. His own cock twitched as he stroked, as he realized that every time he'd brought himself off, it had all been practice for _this_, the undoing of Sherlock Holmes.

_Bring your best game, Watson._

He did. He swirled his fist over the head of Sherlock's cock, drawing in the weeping beads of precum, and pulled his hand down to the root of his cock. He slid it back up again, curling it around the glans, then down, increasing speed, increasing pressure. Sherlock's breathing stuttered and he arched again.

"John, yes, that. God, yes."

"Sherlock, shit. Your voice."

John pushed Sherlock flush onto his back and straddled him, taking their cocks together in his hand. Sherlock cried out, eyes wide and fixed on John's face. "John, what—"

"Got an idea," John said, his hands stilling. "Alright?"

"Don't stop!" Sherlock cried, his impatience calling to mind any number of tantrums.

John let out a sharp bark of a laugh and began the stroke again. The feel of Sherlock's cock pressed against his own stilled his laughter. Sherlock took hold of his hips and pressed him closer. John noticed the rhythm of his fingers and worked hard to copy it, to give Sherlock the pressure and the pace he needed.

"John, I—God, I . . ."

John could feel it. "You're coming, aren't you, love?"

"I-I, John, I . . ."

"Come on, then," John said, pumping faster. He pressed a kiss against the freckle above Sherlock's eyebrow. "I've got you, my glorious genius."

"I love you!" Sherlock cried, arching up and pulling John's hips down with bruising force. "John!"

John swallowed the words in a deep, gasping kiss as Sherlock continued to buck against him, coming, still coming.

_Mine, you bastard_, John thought, a base possessive impulse rolling through him as he watched Sherlock wind down from the high. _You're mine now._

John wasn't sure what to expect in the post-coital haze. Would Sherlock make a startling deduction in the throes of passion? Would he get up immediately and race off, uncomfortable with the intimacy? Would he push John away, send him to his room—or worse, declare the whole thing a failed experiment and insist they go back to what they'd been before?

The actual experience of Sherlock was a romantic fantasy come to life. He rose and planted a soft kiss to John's mouth. "Be right back," he murmured, and he was, carrying a soapy, warm flannel in one hand and another, clean and dry, in his other hand. He set about cleaning them both, careful to get all of him off of John's hand and between his fingers, then used the second flannel to dry them thoroughly before he collapsed back into bed and pulled John against him.

And then . . .he began to sing, a somber melody in French, full of romance and longing and sweetness. John's body was wrapped firmly in Sherlock's own and his heart and soul were cradled in that lovely song. He relaxed fully, his trust and love united in the gorgeous light of the early evening and in the skin-silk of the man he adored.


	12. In Aeternum

"Just met with Mycroft," John said, re-entering the flat and combing his rain-damp hair back from his forehead. He'd allowed it to grow out, just a bit, because of _Sherlock_. He liked it to be a little longer.

"Mm." Sherlock was bent over his microscope, studying something that was either hazardous or disgusting, going by the thin fabric mask arranged over his mouth and nose.

"Should I cover up?" John asked, alarmed.

"No. What did he give you?"

"What?"

"In your hand, a manila envelope. Test results?"

John didn't answer. Sherlock hadn't looked up once from his microscope. How could he know what John was holding, let alone that it had come from a lab?

Sherlock finally did glance up from the microscope and John saw a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "_Our_ test results?"

_The man's a menace,_ John thought to himself as he brought the envelope over to Sherlock and placed it on the kitchen table-cum-laboratory bench. "That was the crux of his implications, yeah."

"Good. I hate condoms."

John's cheeks bloomed vivid crimson. "Jesus. You discussed our sex life with your brother?"

"No. He took this upon himself, I'm sure."

"I just don't want to know any of this." John's eyes popped open. "So he took my blood without me knowing about it."

"Mm." Sherlock ripped the envelope open and pulled out the paper inside. He let out a cry of triumph. "John! No more condoms!"

"Sherlock—"

"Come, John. Let's celebrate this wonderful news."

"Sanitize yourself first."

"What?"

"You still haven't removed your damned face mask, you berk!"

"Oh, that, right."

"Whatever hazardous thing you've been playing with, don't get it on me!"

Sherlock's sigh was dripping with forbearance. "Fine. Five minutes. Bed. Be lubed and ready."

John pursed his lips as he watched Sherlock race to the bathroom to perform his sanitization procedure. "Fine, but I'm topping," he shouted, then stalked towards the bedroom he now shared with his lovely, strange, and incredibly bossy lover.

* * *

Sherlock emerged from the shower, disinfected and ready—though, to be fair, he was _always_ ready. The reemergence of his libido had been startling, since it didn't seem to simply be a resumption of the old schedule and service, like a temporary driver's strike on the Tube. No, it turned out that he had trains backed up clear out to York, and they were all struggling to run at regular intervals directly through his cock.

Of course, nothing could make them run but John. Any of his particulars could set it off, however; his smile, his laugh, the smell of his tea, the gleam in his eyes when he brandished his gun, the sound of his voice when he detailed his own deductions—even the feel of the wool of his favorite jumper. The not-so-secret room in Sherlock's Mind Palace had turned into a pornographic playland, and as it happened, Sherlock didn't mind that at all.

Sherlock decided that clothing was perfectly optional, owing to the urgency of the situation, and rounded the corner to his own room. He stopped dead. John was naked and leaned back on the bed. His cock was hard and, as requested, was gleaming with lube.

Sherlock's eyes finally made it up to John's face, and the man had the audacity to wink at him. "This what you wanted?"

"God, yes," Sherlock said. His voice was barely audible in his aroused surprise.

"Now get over here and let me prepare you."

"Yes, Captain." Sherlock crawled onto the bed and lay back opposite John, legs pulled to his chest. They'd fucked several times, but always face to face. John insisted. Sherlock didn't mind.

John went to his knees and reached for the tube on the bedside table. Once his fingers were slick, he eased his hand between Sherlock's legs and ran his fingers gently past his perineum to the tightly puckered entrance. He tapped three times.

Sherlock sighed. "Must you always knock?"

John smirked. "If you hate it, flat-out tell me to stop."

"You know I don't hate it."

"Yes. And I know you put up a mock protest so I can hear the sound of your voice. You know it turns me on. Now shut up."

"Really? Shut up?"

John groaned and slipped a finger inside him. Sherlock twitched around that finger and felt the warmth build in the pit of his belly. John pushed the rest of his finger deep into him and Sherlock sighed. This, yes, this was good, but it wasn't enough.

"More," he whispered. "Please, John. More."

John complied, slipping a second well-lubed finger into him and scissoring them slightly. Oh, that sensation of being filled, stretched—especially by a doctor who knew exactly where his—

Sherlock groaned when John rubbed a well-practiced fingertip against his prostate. "God, yes. John, please, more."

"Slowly, Sherlock," he whispered, smoothing through Sherlock's curls with his other hand. "We have time."

"Listen to me: I want your naked cock in my arse, John Watson. I want to feel you in me, no barriers."

John groaned. "Sherlock, damn it." He shoved a third finger in and Sherlock arched up to the touch.

"I admire your medical concern for that precious ring of muscle, Doctor, but I assure you, I am anxious for you to _get on with it already_ and fuck me into the mattress."

"You bloody idiot," John said, shoving those three fingers in even deeper and massaging Sherlock's perineum with his thumb. "I'm going to fuck you, do you understand?" The hand in Sherlock's hair tightened and pulled until the wide expanse of Sherlock's throat was fully exposed. John's lips plucked at each of Sherlock's freckles. "Remember that you asked for this."

John rose to his knees and grabbed the backs of Sherlock's thighs. He shoved until Sherlock was completely exposed under him, then bent forward and sank in, inch by delicious inch. Sherlock moaned, tilting his hips, trying to swallow that cock inside him deeper, quicker, more completely.

"Christ," John moaned. "Oh, God. You feel so fucking fantastic."

"Fuck me."

And John did, each stroke driving deeper until he could feel John's hips slamming against his ass with near-bruising force. Sherlock's own breaths were coming in shallow, burning gasps.

"Sherlock," John murmured. "Look at me, please. Let me see your eyes."

He wasn't used to this tender form of inquiry, especially not during this kind of sex, this animalistic, base _claiming_ between them. He turned his full attention to John's face.

Emotion, pure and strong, that love they shared was fully uncovered. John was full of wonder and adoration. It didn't stop Sherlock's runaway passion, not at all. It only drove it harder, pushed it higher.

John's mouth covered his, and the kiss was surprisingly tender and sweet. "It's our last first," John said against Sherlock's lips.

Sherlock wondered at that. They'd been together as lovers for a little more than a month, and there had been so many firsts: First Fucking, First Waking Up Mrs. Hudson With the Noise, First Rimming, First Angry Fuck, First Frottage, First, First, First. Could this act, the First Naked Fuck, be their last first?

"No, John." Sherlock writhed as he felt the pressure from an impending orgasm building in his belly. "First Anniversary. First Decade Together. First Dance. There are so many others; we are not defined by what we do in the bedroom, you know."

John sighed, a happy smile contradicting the tears shining in his eyes. He wrapped his free hand around Sherlock's cock and gave it a couple of slow pumps. Sherlock groaned.

"Always," John whispered, kissing him again before accelerating the pace of his hand to match the pace of their fucking.

"Always," Sherlock agreed, then canted his hips to fuck John's hand and John's cock.

"Let me see you when you come for me."

"If you're back from your linguistic la-la land in time," Sherlock said with a breathless grin.

"Idiot."

"Come for me, John. Inside me."

John shuddered, and Sherlock felt the wave crest. He wasn't going to be able to wait. John wouldn't be too upset. He'll see dozens of Sherlock's orgasms; he won't end up missing this one.

"Sherlock, oh God, Sherlock, orange autumn aperture in aeternum!"

Sherlock came with a great gasp, surprised that he'd gotten there so quickly. _In Aeternum._ Oh, how he loved that phrase. He'd never mentioned that, not even during their copious conversations that had begun under the flimsy excuse for a book project and continued unabated after their relationship had deepened. John had said it in the haze of his customary and completely unconscious orgasmic convulsions. It was his own kind of vow.

Sherlock pulled his John down on top of him, his lips finding that lovely car on his left shoulder and kissing it softly. _This is what brought you to me. In Aeternum, John Watson._

John came to himself, Sherlock's mouth on his scar, worshipful and shameless. "Sherlock?"

"Mm?"

"Are you crying?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Was it something I said?"

"What you said is mine."

"Everything I am is yours."

"And for that, I am grateful. _In Aeternum._"


End file.
